What You Can Learn From My Clients Part 1

1. Sticking feathers up your rear doesn't make you a chicken!

What does this have to do with hiring a trainer? If you've never heard that cliche, I'm sure you've heard this one: 'there's no magic pill'. Both are true about hiring a trainer. It's really quite simple -- just because you have a trainer doesn't mean you're going to get fit; it doesn't mean you're going to lose weight or reach your goals. Now, this may sound severe, but sometimes a little severity is what is needed to spark a change!

Your success is determined by you, not your trainer, not your spouse, not your life circumstances. I've been a personal trainer for a long time & worked with a lot of clients over the years. Some clients get that, some don't. The client that gets it, succeeds.

Don't get me wrong, personal training is a great way to reach your fitness goals; but, the role of a trainer is to educate, encourage, and hold you accountable. Our role is not to work with you 3-5 times per week for the rest of your life! At some point we want you to make fitness a habit, so much so that you don't need us anymore. That means you'll need to learn from us, find social support and consistently do work on your own.

My most successful clients have been those that pick my brain (I love it when a client asks me questions!). They're the ones that email me in between sessions with questions or updates on what they've been doing on their own. They read all material that I give them and they fill out their workout & food logs diligently.

Supplementally, your trainer must help you set goals & teach you how to set goals on your own. They need to teach you fitness terms, guidelines, form and progression. Lastly, they need to slowly wean you off of depending on them every week.

What it really boils down to is this: if you're ready to make a change, you will make that change. A trainer is a tool for you to use, not your 'magic pill'. You must do the work, you must make the effort.

Stay tuned for parts 2 & 3 of this series!

Read Part 2 "Your Attitude Points the Way"

A Child's View of Sports & Weight

Angie Conway is one of OnTrack Fitness's group fitness instructors with a unique viewpoint about being overweight in the fitness industry. She's shared part of her journey in the post Breaking Stereotypes, now she's going backward, to share her childhood...

I have been overweight all through my life starting at the age of 10. This is when I hit puberty and had a growth spurt, both up and out. By the end of fourth grade I was 5’4” weighing 120. Neither my doctors nor my parents saw what the charts indicated for my height they were all concerned about my weight for my age.

I participated in every sport possible. I was in dance classes, played softball, basketball and I excelled despite my size. I loved to ride my bike all over town. During the summer I would ride from sunrise to sunset. In my elementary school I was one of the fastest runners in my grade.

But, clothes were ackward for me. I was 10 and had the body of a 19 year-old. I was in Girl Scouts and the uniforms weren't made for my level in my size. When I was in fifth grade, I was on the basketball team and there were no uniforms that fit. I had to have special shorts purchased for me, the color was not the same as everyone elses. My jersey had to be altered to give the shirt another 2 inches around.

The summer after sixth grade I tried out for softball all-stars. There were a couple other girls that were big, but I was the biggest. When it came time to be timed on our running, I had the fastest time. I made the team. This team had great success. We won state tournaments in two different divisions and went to play at a national level, several states away in Kansas!

By the time I got to junior high I weighed about 160 and still expanding outward. The town I grew-up in had several elementary schools that all poured into one junior high. The beginning of my seventh grade year we played dodge ball for the first time in class with a mixed boys and girls teams on teams. I was the last one picked. It always hurts to be last picked, but in junior high it is a popularity contest, and the fat girl is not popular. No one in my gym class really knew me and what athletic abilities I had, they only saw a fat girl.

The art of playing dodge ball is to hit others with one of those red rubber playground balls. And, of course, to catch one that someone hurls at you. Again no one in the class knew that I had just spent the last summer playing softball all over the state of Indiana and across the mid-west. I was not the shy girl hiding in the back or the prissy girl saying “oh don’t hit me” -- I was up front throwing and catching until I was the last one standing. From then on this fat girl was never the last to be picked.

Read more about Angie in her other post.